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Inspiration

Is it a formula? Is it a trick of the light? Does it come from emptying out or filling up? Is it brought about by chance, exercise, time alone or time together? What gets your motor running when it comes to creative projects? This recent article in the The Guardian by Laura Barnettfeatures 20 creative people from the worlds of culture, art, music, film and theatre answering the same question: what gives you creative inspiration?

My favourite answer is by Wayne McGregor, Choreographer

-Do

-Empty

-Panic

-Forage

-Generate

-Embody

-Edit

-Decide

-Persist

-Practise

I like these ones too:

I go through messy phases and tidy phases. Being messy during a tidy phase is never good, and vice versa. -Susan Philipsz, artist

Don't wait for a good idea to come to you. Start by realising an average idea – no one has to see it. If I hadn't made the works I'm ashamed of, the ones I'm proud of wouldn't exist. -Polly Morgan, artist

Get an alarm with a long snooze function and set it early. Shallow-sleep dreams have been the source of many of my best ideas (sadly, small children are no respecters of prospective genius). -Rupert Goold, directorThe little images that I get from sitting alone in my apartment – the way the light is falling through the window; the man I just saw walk by on the other side of the street – find their way into snatches of lyrics. I write in short spurts – for five, 10, 15 minutes – then I pace around the room, or go and get a snack. -Martha Wainwright, singer-songwriter

As for me, I guess I'd have to say, a clean kitchen,accompanied by sunshine streaming onto the table puts me in a good head space for creating things. Walking to work lets me process things inside my head and hold onto those half-remembered dreams. My number one source of inspiration is observing my kids' approach to creative projects.